


Fast Car

by iopeneditbeforechristmas



Category: Homestuck
Genre: AU - No Game, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, friends to something more, these kids are adorable and i am dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-02
Updated: 2016-04-02
Packaged: 2018-05-30 20:41:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6439672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iopeneditbeforechristmas/pseuds/iopeneditbeforechristmas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dave Strider is in love with Jade Harley, and will be until the end of time and space.  When you think about it, really, that’s all that matters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fast Car

**Author's Note:**

> i listened to the jonas blue version of fast car for this just because it was the only looped one i could find on youtube, but the tracy chapman version is definitely better.

Dave looks at his computer. There’s a webcam looking at him. He knows it’s there, hidden in the eye of a smuppet ‘left’ in his room one day. He could move it. Pick up the smuppet and smash its eye. Throw it out of a window. Tear it to shreds.

Bro would be pissed. There’d be even less in the fridge than usual.

Dave doesn’t know if the privacy’s worth it. He doesn’t know if he cares enough.

***

He stares at the screen for a little while more. There’s a comic in front of him. He’s been trying to emulate his bro’s style. There’s irony in there somewhere. Probably. Hopefully.

It isn’t really worth it. There’s not really a point anymore, if there ever was. Dave knows this, but he keeps messing around with the mouse anyway. It’s more habit than anything by this point. He ploughs on, turning round and round and round in circles and circles, not really creating anything, not deleting it either. It’s like a slow dance, but one through almost-stopped time.

***

It’s hot. The shitty air-condition in the apartment cycles stale air through the rooms and Dave’s lungs, an endless cycle of rot. He imagines himself filling up with tar until it overflows and he’s coughing up sticky black sludge. Imagines the heat, scorching up his windpipe and out in a fiery blaze of pain.

He moves to his bed, flicking through a discarded copy of Game Bro. He reviewed it like every other month, but it was a half-hearted effort. The worst thing is that he doesn’t even know if he’ll be able to do better next time.

***

 There’s a ping from the computer. Pesterchum blinks at him. Dave stares back.

\-- ectoBiologist  [EB]   began pestering turntechGodhead  [TG]   at 14:13 –- 

EB: hey  
EB: have you done the history homework?  
EB: the essay took me forever. i mean, i’m just going to ask you one question. do you know anything about the ancient egyptians except the stuff in the textbook?  
EB: because i don’t   
EB: i know that  
EB: and ampora knows that  
EB: and basically my point is that that essay was total bullshit  
EB: dave? it says you’re online?   
EB: fine, i guess you’re busy or something  
EB: message me when you aren’t

\-- ectoBiologist [EB] ceased pestering turntechGodhead [TG] at 14:14 --

Dave knows a lot about the Ancient Egyptians. There’s a replica of the Rosetta Stone on his shelf. He did the essay, too. It didn’t take him long enough.

***

Too long later and Dave’s feeling angry. He’s been lying on his bed doing nothing for beyond ages. Time feels like treacle, the glow-in-the-dark hands of his space clock crawling around the face like it’s a race to be the slowest.

He stands up jerkily, grabs his keys and slams the door behind him.

He smashes the webcam before he leaves.

***

Dave runs. He’s always thought that if he’s fast enough he could get away, leave everything behind. He’d be somewhere else, _someone_ else, and sometimes the prospect is so tantalising he can taste it.

He never leaves though. He doesn’t know why. At this point it’s one of those habit things; he’s been here for so long the small part of him that still knows how to live is holding on out of spite.

***

There’s an abandoned church just outside the city. No one goes there; it’s always been Dave’s and Dave’s alone, and it’s the one thing no one else has ever known about. It takes forty minutes walking, but twenty if Dave runs, and the wind in his hair tries to lift him up and take him away. He’s fast; he knows he’s fast. Time’s never seemed to pay proper attention to him.

***

There’s a girl there. She doesn’t say anything, just comes and lies down beside him and they stare at the sky until it grows dark. When he leaves she waves goodbye, and Dave sees stars in her hair and a galaxy in her eyes.

***

When he gets back to the apartment Bro still isn’t there, but the fridge is empty and the smuppet strewn across Dave’s bedroom is gone. There’s another webcam somewhere; Dave knows this like he knows he will never take off his sunglasses, but he doesn’t seem to care anymore.

For the first time he can remember, Dave feels _warm._

***

Dave goes back to the church every day after school for the rest of the week.  The girl is there the same time he is, every single day without fail, and the fifth time they see each other she hugs him before he goes. She must be his age, the soft edges of childhood still obvious in her face, but Dave’s transfixed by her eyes. They’re green, brighter than he’s ever seen before, and they seem endless.

Strangely, Dave thinks for a split second that he mightn’t mind letting her see his own eyes.

It’s her tenth visit when she asks him his name.

“Dave,” he says. “Dave Strider.”

“Nice to meet you, Dave!” she grins. “I’m Jade Harley.”

She holds out her hand for him to shake. He takes it, grips it firmly. He’s noticed that about her; sometimes she does… _things._ Odd things. Things he thinks an alien might do if it was trying to pretend to be a human.

He doesn’t like thinking that though, because Jade is too perfect to be an alien. She could be from space though. She’s like starlight, he thinks. She sparkles.

“What are you doing here?” he asks her, because he feels like he should say something. The words come out stilted, slowly – too _slow,_ everything is always too slow – but Jade doesn’t seem to care.

“I live here!” she says brightly. Dave frowns. Jade nods at him. “I know it seems strange, but my Grandpa’s gone so now I live on my own. We used to live on this massive island together, and sometimes we’d go travelling! But we came here and I lost him. So I decided to live here.”

“Oh,” says Dave.

“I’m sorry,” he says a moment later, because he feels like he should. Jade tilts her head at him.

“I’ll show you around!” she exclaims suddenly, as though she’s just had the best idea in the world.

She takes Dave by the hand and he has to stop himself from stiffening. _Relax,_ he tells himself, forcing himself to breathe in a way that’s not at all relaxing but which everyone says helps. He does calm down, but he doesn’t think it’s the breathing. It was probably Jade.

She shows him her bedroom first. It’s an old mattress and a pile of blankets behind the altar, but Jade looks at it like it’s a room in the Ritz. There’s a stack of books beside it, with titles like ‘ _101 Places to Visit’_ and _‘Advanced Quantum Physics’._

Not for the first time, Dave thinks Jade is a very strange girl.

When it’s time for him to go, Jade hugs him like she always does, except this time Dave puts his arms around her as well. His grip is weak, his heart thumping in his chest, but he doesn’t think there’s ever been a moment more important in his whole eleven years.

***

When he’s thirteen, Dave dates a girl with angular red glasses and a smile like a dragon’s. She’s special, because she’s the first person he’s ever loved like anything, and they stay friends even after it ends. Of course it ends; he knew it would when they started. But it was good while it lasted.

Maybe what ended it was how Dave always felt better with Jade. He doesn’t know if he loves her, because the only thing he knows about love is what he’s learned from daytime TV and that seems like what he had with Terezi, because he wanted to kiss her even though it was sloppy and they never really felt right doing it, but that’s not what he feels like with Jade.

He asks her, when they’re both cloud-gazing with their arms crossed behind their heads. She frowns for a while, before brightening up.

“I know what love is,” she says, and even though she says it perfectly cheerfully Dave doesn’t think he’s heard her more serious. “My grandpa told me. He said it was when you want a person to be safe, and you want them to be a good person, and you want them to grow? But then he said that it was about you too. And that you felt better with the person. That they made you feel more.”

Dave looks at Jade in a way he never has before and feels something. He doesn’t tell her, but it’s like a tiny flame that surrounds his heart whenever he needs it. He doesn’t tell her, but Jade keeps him alive in a way that nothing else has ever been able to do.

***

He comes close to telling her, two years later. They’re fifteen and tired and Jade’s produced a six-pack of beer from God-knows-where. It’s the first time either of them have drunk. They go too fast and finish the pack in fifteen minutes.

Dave’s head is spinning and Jade’s cheeks are flushed, but they’re giddy and giggling. They mess around for a while, until Jade looks into Dave’s eyes. He feels like he should do something, something _special,_ because Jade’s special.

He thinks about it. He takes off his sunglasses.

Jade makes a small sound, her mouth opening. Her fingers reach out and start caressing his cheek. Dave puts his hand over hers. For a moment that feels like an infinity, the world stops. They’re suspended in time and space, just the two of them, and Dave feels like he could tell Jade anything.

He doesn’t though, because next thing her eyes start to droop and her head falls into his lap. She’s snoring softly within minutes, though Dave would never tell her. He slips into unconsciousness knowing that there’s a lot of things he’d probably never tell her.

***

When they’re both sixteen, she turns up outside his house in a Ferrari. Dave’s stronger now, his insides hardened into something that will never break and never heal. Jade’s sharpened. Her childish roundness has been whittled into edges and points she tries to hide with goofy smiles and kindness.

Her eyes tell the truth.

“’Sup, Harley,” Dave says, smirking. “Where’d you get the ride?”

She shrugs. “Stole it. Get in.”

“Where are we going?”

“I don’t know!” she grins at him, a real-life, genuine Harley grin. “Anywhere you want.”

“You okay there Harley? It’s hot as fuck out today, you got sunstroke or something?”

“Nope!”

“Then please. Enlighten me. I’m all up and ready to hear why you’re looking at me with a stolen Ferrari and a crazy-ass plan.”

“Come on Dave,” she says softly. “You hate it here. It’s…it’s not good for you. It’s not good for me. I want to leave. I want you to come with me.”

“Right,” is all Dave can manage. His thoughts are turning around and around in circles, faster than they ever have before. He has school. He’s doing okay; low As and high Bs. He’ll get into at least some good colleges, and he’s got the money to pay for them in an account Bro doesn’t know about. He could get out of here. Go from this slow town to a slow city, slow job, slow life.

But if that car’s not fast Dave’s motherfucking Guy Fieri. And he’s so sick of everything being slow.

He goes back into the house, grabs whatever he thinks he’ll need and stuffs it into a bag. He’s done in five minutes.

“Okay,” he says, nodding at Jade. “Okay. Let’s do this shit.”

Jade grins at him, holds out her hand for a fist bump. Dave knocks his knuckles against hers and gets into the car.

He closes the door and Jade _floors_ it. They’re breaking about a million traffic rules at once and it hits Dave that they have _nothing._ No plan, no money, jack shit. But he was right; the car’s the fastest thing he’s ever been in and he’s drunk on happiness.

Something else hits him too; Dave Strider is in love with Jade Harley, and will be until the end of time and space.  When you think about it, really, that’s all that matters.

**Author's Note:**

> note: the ampora mentioned is dualscar. he's john and dave's history teacher, because dualscar as a history teacher is hilarious and amporas are the first thing i think of when it comes to homestuck and characters who like history. also formatting pesterlogs is the worst


End file.
